


Pull Me Out Of the Black

by AkumaStrife



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, its light tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 17:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10813269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkumaStrife/pseuds/AkumaStrife
Summary: Haunted in death, haunted in life, haunted in dreams--in death again you will probably be haunted still, but until then Adam is the only one allowed to see you fall apart.





	Pull Me Out Of the Black

You’re running, except you’re not moving at all. Screaming, but there’s no sound and your throat’s already raw from screaming or choking on insects or maybe reaching in your mouth and trying to claw them out. But you’re shaking. Always shaking, always trembling, always weak and small and too young in a way you’re not when you’re awake.

Dreaming, you realize with the thought. You must be dreaming.

You forget you’re dreaming the very next second when you see it. It has a tongue. It shouldn’t. It was too many pupils in large kaleidoscope eyes. It shouldn’t. Each pupil is trained on you and you want to crawl out of your skin—maybe it won’t recognize you then.

It comes for you, too large and humming with something that sets your teeth grating and your brain rattling in your skull and nails digging into pulp that might be your palms—might be soft and rotted tree bark—might be a mound of swarming wasps.

It’s too big. The wasp is too big and too wrong and just anatomically similar to its realistic counterparts it’s recognizable, but it’s bulky and humming and acid green—no forest green—no kelly green—no, no, no, it’s mint green, isn’t it, and it’s gotten you because you can’t move your feet and you can’t scream and it’s humming so loud it fills your throat until you’re choking on it.

It’s tongue, forked (why is it forked, why is it green, why does it smell cloying like mint schnapps, why is it here), drags over your skin and sends you shuddering with revulsion, no, no, you’re having a seizure, yes, that’s it.

A prick against your neck. Your cheek. Above your eye. Inside your elbow. The soft skin beside your armpit. Everywhere, everywhere, you’re stung so many times; icy pricks into your arms and face and stomach and over your heart—

You thrash awake in Monmouth in the dark and the quiet, and there’s Noah, his nails biting into your skin. Icy little stings, dragging you as forceful as he can from the dream. A dream. Just a dream.

Your throat is tight, painful pulses behind your eyes that might be a migraine or tears. Both, probably.

It was just a dream.

You still feel sick.

How awful it is, to be constantly reminded of your imminent death. It’s coming, it’s fast approaching, and you can’t even dream safely without having to be reminded, without the fact shoved down your throat.

“I got Adam,” Noah whispers, barely there, words a brush of cool air against your feverish skin and damp cheeks.

Adam. _Adam._ His face appears blurry above you. Everything relaxes and yet emotion rushes up too, the instinct to compose yourself warring viciously with the want to fall apart.

“Adam,” you breathe, sigh, hiccup wetly in your mouth. You reach with shaking hands and he lets you grip one of his. “You’re so beautiful.” He is. He’s gorgeous, both intrinsically and for being here now. You love him so much. So much it chokes you at times, angry wasps buzzing in your chest like the barbs he spits at you when you say something wrong.

“You’re delusional,” Adam says back, quiet but a little amused too. Good, better that Adam thinks you’re being silly than unraveling at all your frayed seams. “Dreaming. Just dreaming.” His other hand, dry and cool, brushes your sweat-soaked bangs back.

You don’t understand what that has to do with anything.

“I’m dying,” you croak.

“No, you’re not. You’re awake,” Adam says. He sits down on the edge of the couch, hip pressed into yours, petting your forehead and smoothing your hair. Its a rare moment of tenderness from him, one you’re greedy for, foolishly considering the nightmare worth _this._ “You’re here, on this awful couch. I told you it was no good.”

It’s so tender that you wonder what Noah said to him, what he exaggerated to get Adam to act like this.

Noah always did know too much.

You shake your head, in the process jostling Adam’s hand and then it’s on your cheek and you lean into it with a heavy sigh of desperate desire. “I’m dying, Adam. It’s coming—I can’t—there’s not enough _time.”_

Adam shushes you, soft and quiet, a little uncertain in both tone and expression. Like he doesn’t know what he’s doing or what you’re doing but knowing he has to help somehow. He leans over, hesitant and questioning, but presses a kiss to your forehead. His exhale shakes, stutters, but he moves down to kiss your tear-stained cheek, and you lean into that too. Lips parting automatically and eyes closing despite how your wet lashes stick together.

You’re so _tired._

But the nightmarish wasp is waiting there for you. Your breath catches, punches in and out too hard, and Adam’s shaking you gently, speaking to you, but all you can hear is buzzing, humming, vibrations coming for you.

You shake your head, babble some incoherent warning.

Hands against your face, holding you still, holding you as Adam presses his forehead to yours— _Adam’s hands—_ and he’s whispering something to you but you can’t hear it over the buzzing, over your own panicked pulse.

Lips meet yours, off-center, dry, shaking, but warm and careful. You stop. Stop gasping, stop shaking, stop thinking. You keep your eyes open, on Adam, and want to cry all over again at the unpracticed, desperate way he kisses you.

 _Out of his depth,_ something in your brain whisper, but you don’t have time to feel awful for making Adam do this probably against his own wants, when this may be the only time you’ll have it. You’ve wanted it too much to deny a dying man his wish.

When you find Glendower you’re going to ask for Noah’s life back, you’ve made up your mind for months. You think, then, that you should be allowed this.

“I’m… Adam…” you whisper. “Don’t let it get me? Keep me awake? I can’t stay awake.”

He watches you for too many minutes thick with tension and something precarious; you’re both skirting an edge with an unknowable bottom. Then he nods. He’s unsure, you can see it, but he nods and kisses you again, better this time, and keeps you awake.

**Author's Note:**

> posted on my tumblr as well--come say hi!
> 
> http://akumastrife.tumblr.com/post/160276561936/pull-me-out-of-the-black-adansey


End file.
